re:thinking/re:working – concept note

The 2019 SDG Conference Bergen aims to draw together concerned, disparate and converging views on how knowledge, science, education and institutions need innovative and radical re:thinking in order to provide foundations for the global collaborative re:working needed to engage and work with the 2030 Agenda. Over two days, Norway’s research and higher education sector brings together national and international speakers from academia, government, civil society, and the United Nations system, to explore the roles of research and education in creating new approaches for shared commitments to a sustainable global future.

At the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in July 2018, an impression emerged that the world is not on track to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Addressing the HLPF, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that while much progress has been made on the 2030 Agenda, the world has also backtracked in areas that are fundamental to the shared pledge to “leave no one behind”. He noted how, for the first time in a decade, the number of people who are undernourished has increased, gender inequality continues to deprive women of basic rights, and investment in sustainable infrastructure remains entirely inadequate — all amid runaway climate change, eroding human rights and persistent pockets of poverty.

The programme of the 2019 SDG Conference Bergen takes these challenges into account in a process of re:thinking for re:working, giving particular attention to five key SDGs coming up for review at the HLPF 2019 – namely SDGs 4, 8, 10, 13, and 17. The aim is to generate critical discussion of key juxtapositions, inconsistencies and interconnections in the 2030 Agenda. The programme pairs the six SDGs for maximum focus on inequalities, inconsistencies, and interdependencies: SDG4-SDG10, SDG8-SDG13, and finally a session where we focus on SDG17 and the potential for new forms of partnerships between the research community and the 2030 Agenda.

The conference will take place over two days, Thursday 7 and Friday 8 February 2019.